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AndyThorley 1

For instance there's this weird nutcase cult somewhere that claim that WWII never happened and the supposedly dead and murdered simply went and formed china.

So...there's a lot of weird theories about, but the main question with your idea is "What do people gain from believing these things"

What, to use your example, does anyone have to gain if someone does or does not believe that however many years ago the trojans left a wooden horse behind, y'know?

The only example I can see of history being important is with religious events...it matters to some that God does or doesnt exist and it does matter to others whether, say, buddah existed (Sorry if Im getting this wrong...Im not very religious myself) because people base their lives and in some cases their decisions on these things.

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BuhiBuhi-Kun 0

but I don't trust historians and thier views about how and what happened. Because frankly they have too much tied up in prestige and wanting to right to be 100% objective. It's like the proof that vikings were here (in Canada) long before Colombus and the fur traders but it's kinda hushed up. Nobody wants to be proven wrong after so many years of teaching "history". Well that's my take on it....

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AndyThorley 1

Its true...according to historical records there's a battle between Ramesses the Second of egypt and the hittites...The battle of Qadesh in Syria, to be precise...according to accounts from both sides, both the hitites and the egyptians won.

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Celumnaz 4

hehe, when I was a kid (6 or 7) I would think what they were telling me about God... and sometimes I'd think "Well, He could have made us 5 sec. ago with all current memories intact" and I'd daydream from there that we were all really just one minute old and such.

He could have just made us and I only *think* I've posted on this website before...

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Aslan 2

Personally, I don't believe that 'history is written by the victors'. I think it's a nice concise soundbite that seems to ring true, but in actual fact is at best a truism and at worst is just plain wrong.

I think that immediate history is written by the victors - in the sense that only the people left alive are the ones who can say what happened - but in the modern world there is no immediate history. Every major event is dissected and discussed and analysed by numerous conflicting voices almost as soon as it happens. There was no sense of the coalition in Iraq, for example, dictating what would be written in history books for ever more; in fact, the participants of any side of anything make pretty suspicious sources for most historians.

So when Andy points out that...

according to historical records there's a battle between Ramesses the Second of egypt and the hittites...The battle of Qadesh in Syria, to be precise...according to accounts from both sides, both the hitites and the egyptians won.

...this is not surprising, but nor is it surprising that we don't believe it. We have enough guile and common sense to understand, at least, that we can't rely on either of these sources as our sole fount of primary evidence.

If nearly all of the people posting on this topic say with one breath that 'history is written by the victors' and then with the next breath say something like 'History is but smoke and mirrors teaching people to believe none of what they hear and half of what they see', well doesn't that tell you something?

And Ericat, I'm afraid your point about Shakespeare completely eludes me. You seem to be suggesting that since Shakespeare's daughter was illiterate (a fairly common state of affairs in Tudor England), then Shakespeare himself was not what he claimed to be. Have I got that right? Are you suggesting that because Shakespeare's daughter was illiterate and because Shakespeare didn't travel much, then Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's plays? And have you yourself ever actually read any Shakespeare?

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AndyThorley 1

From what Ive read of shakespeare (Titus andronicus, romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, the merchant of venice...hardly the most concise readings, but more than my friend here who claims shakespeare didnt write his plays) and though some of them take place in different countries (Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet take place in Italy and Macbeth in Scotland, for example) they dont use any form of historical knowledge.

And even if they had then Shakespeare could have easilly picked them up...from travellers in a pub, for example (if Shakespeare would go there, I dunno him personally so I cant comment)